BRISBANE – Fourth seed Marion Bartoli cruised into the semi-finals of the Brisbane International tennis tournament after crushing Czech opponent Barbora Zahlavova Strycova in staight sets here on Thursday.
The Frenchwoman, the highest seed left in the women’s draw, was in complete control during the 87-minute quarter-final despite dropping her first service game. However, after recovering from 1-2 down in the first set, the 26-year-old Bartoli never looked back, peppering Zahlavova Strycova with her powerful groundstrokes and pouncing on any loose shots with devastating effect.
Bartoli was particularly punishing on Zahlavova Strycova’s serve, standing well inside the baseline to receive both first and second serves. The Czech world No.69 had no answers, winning just 42 per cent of her first serves and 29 per cent of her second to concede six breaks over the two sets.
“It’s part of my game to be aggressive on the return of serve and today I thought I’d do the same again against Barbora because she’s such a great runner and she does like long rallies,” Bartoli said. “So I needed to take control early and to be aggressive — I was really happy with the way I played.” After a week of stifling heat and humidity, Brisbane’s weather changed Thursday to cool and wet, which Bartoli said meant adjusting her game. “The conditions out there were very heavy, the balls were getting really heavy and it was hard to get rhythm today especially from the back of the court,
” she said. “The conditions the other day were a lot faster but today I had to work a lot harder to get into the point and get my rhythm.” But Bartoli said once she won the fifth game of the first set she felt in command. “We had a really tough game at 2-2 in the first set and after that I really started to feel better and take control of the match, and after that it was a lot easier,” she said. Bartoli will take on in-form Andrea Petkovic in the semi-final following the German’s impressive 6-3, 6-4 win over Australia’s Jarmila Groth.
The second semi-final will be between fifth seeded Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic, who reached the final four in contrasting fashion. Kvitova had a comfortable 6-0, 6-4 win over Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova, however Pavlyuchenkova had to hold off a stirring comeback from Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic.
Pavlyuchenkova was cruising while leading 6-2, 5-2 before Safarova began her recovery, winning the second set in a tiebreak then opening a 2-0 lead in the third. But the Russian fought back to take the third set and the match 6-2, 6-7 (4/7), 6-3.
